Fwd: HEAVEN & EARTH Article about Santa Barbara

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

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>http://news.newspress.com/toplocal/nunsfor0904.htm
><http://news.newspress.com/np_home/fnews.html>
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>HEAVEN & EARTH
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>A growing number of religious women feel they have been called on to help 
>protect the environment
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>9/4/00
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>By RHONDA PARKS MANVILLE
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>NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
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><mailto:rparks at newspress.com>rparks at newspress.com
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>Working in the organic garden at La Casa de Maria in Montecito -- with 
>ripe tomatoes at her feet and the hot sun overhead -- Sister Marilyn Rudy, 
>a Catholic nun, is trying to save the Earth.
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>For decades she served God and the church by caring for the homeless and 
>people with AIDS in Los Angeles. And now she is one of a growing number of 
>religious women, many of them nuns, who believe they are called to protect 
>the environment, thereby saving creation from destruction.
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>"More and more, I saw that the way we treat the Earth is the way we treat 
>the poor -- as an object not a subject, something to be moved out of our 
>way," said Rudy, who grows organic food with another ecologically minded 
>nun, Maureen Murray, on the La Casa de Maria property. "Saving cans is not 
>really where it is at. It is in joining the spirit of the Creator, and 
>being part of the Earth, so that you start to see people differently, and 
>to see God there."
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>A religiously based concern for the Earth also is growing among members of 
>Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches and Jewish synagogues. While 
>science and religion have not always been compatible, scientists and 
>environmentalists are applauding these efforts. During a major 
>environmental conference at Yale University in the spring, for example, 
>scientists from around the world agreed that religion has a critical role 
>to play in the care of the Earth.
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>"Science can come up with the knowledge of how ecological systems work, 
>but it can't come up with the values of stewardship that are necessary to 
>carry this work out," Westmont College biology professor Jeff Schloss 
>said. "That is the job of ethics and religion."
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>At the heart of the so-called "eco-spirituality" movement is the belief 
>that nature is the primary and unfolding revelation of God. At the 
>forefront of this new frontier are some Catholic nuns in the United 
>States, who are forging new alliances with one another to carry out the 
>work. Rudy, for example, belongs to the order of St. Joseph of Carondelet, 
>and Murray is a sister of the Religious of Sacred Heart. And their work is 
>being done on the La Casa de Maria property, which is owned by the 
>religious women in the Immaculate Heart Community.
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>"The Earth is such a profound teacher," Rudy said. "The universe is ever 
>calling us to return to our beginnings, to touch our core, to hear the 
>Earth and all creation and to bring the knowledge learned into our present 
>life."
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>At La Casa de Maria, Murray and Rudy three years ago created a project 
>called "Eartheart," in which they share the principles of eco-spirituality 
>with others by growing food from seed and leading retreats on 
>contemplative gardening. They till the soil by hand, grow worms and make 
>compost. They pray and meditate, focusing on nature as divine revelation. 
>They recoil at the mere thought of commercial fertilizers and pesticides, 
>which they view as toxic poisons. The sisters advise people to live 
>lightly on the Earth, to respect it and honor it and heal it.
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>Several weeks ago, nearly 100 environmentalist nuns came to La Casa de 
>Maria for a meeting of Sisters of Earth, an informal network of religious 
>women dedicated to environmental spiritual practice in its many forms. 
>Most were from the United States but several came from as far away as 
>Africa, Europe and South America. The group, which includes lay women in 
>the sciences and education, meets every two years. Its primary purpose is 
>to support those who are trying to save the environment, a movement still 
>making inroads into the wider Catholic community.
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>While the movement appears to embrace some so-called "New Age" elements 
>and rituals, such as chanting, singing and dancing to honor the Earth, the 
>sisters dismiss the label as meaningless and dismissive. What they are 
>doing could more accurately be considered a recognition of ancient wisdoms 
>and rituals that respect the rhythms of nature, they say. And their work 
>marks a return to traditions of a simpler time: Many American religious 
>orders in the 19th and early 20th centuries grew their own food, as Rudy 
>and Murray are doing now. Elsewhere in the United States, religious women 
>are using solar energy and building straw bale structures on their property.
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>"Some may see this work as vanguard, but many people will tell you that 
>all of this will be mainstream in 10 years," said Sarah Taylor, an 
>assistant professor of religion at Northwestern University, who studied 
>the movement while earning her doctorate at UCSB.
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>Catholic nuns have worked in uncharted territory before, leading the way 
>in caring for the sick and poor, serving abandoned children in orphanages, 
>and fighting the death penalty. These days, instead of starting hospitals 
>as they did earlier in the century, some nuns have started 
>eco-spirituality communities, such as Genesis Farm in Blairstown, N.
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>J., an organic farm and spirituality center.
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>Now, they are turning their attention to the needs of the Earth.
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>"Now that they see what is happening to the environment, they are 
>responding to that, too," Taylor said.
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>In Santa Maria, St. Francis Sister Janet Corcoran carries out her passion 
>for the green way of life by helping make Marian Medical Center an 
>environmentally conscious member of the community. The hospital has won 
>several environmental awards for reducing the amount of waste it sends to 
>landfills.
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>The hospital has a diligent recycling program and operates a free "store" 
>in which community members can help themselves to clean supplies and 
>equipment that sometimes were used only once, such as surgical scissors 
>and scrubs, sterile water bottles and big soap containers that can be used 
>to store golf clubs.
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>These efforts are in keeping with the somewhat radical vision of St. 
>Francis of Assisi, who had a great respect for all creation, said 
>Corcoran, a Sisters of Earth member.
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>"St. Francis really is the patron saint of ecology," she said. "He called 
>everything brother and sister -- a piece of wood, the sun and the moon -- 
>and he saw nature as his family. There is this sense that people are in 
>control of the world, but what we need is to respect and foster our 
>relationship with Mother Earth. We are all interconnected. We are pilgrims 
>here for just a little while, and we need to respect what God has given us."
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>The sisters have come into the environmental movement from two points of 
>entry -- the peace and social-justice movements and through their interest 
>in feminism and women's issues.
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>"They quickly discovered that the people hardest hit by pesticides, 
>drought, bad water and polluted air are the poorest of the poor," Taylor 
>said. "And they also came to see that link between the violence and 
>oppression of women, and the abuse of the land. For a lot of them, this 
>was the next step, from feminism to ecological consciousness."
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>It was work with the poor that inspired Rudy and Murray to carry out a new 
>vocation of helping people by assisting the Earth.
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>"Since we are all of the Earth, we are all connected," Murray said. "I see 
>this as the primary revelation of God. If we are violent with the Earth, 
>we see violent relationships. The point is to be in harmony with all 
>living things. Since this is God's creation, it is imminently important 
>that I do everything I can to foster harmony with the Earth."
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>Global warming, ozone depletion, rain-forest destruction and toxic-waste 
>disposal are just some of the symptoms that indicate all is not well on 
>the planet, the nuns say.
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>"We're on a perilous path," Murray said. "It think it's very urgent. Look 
>at the incidence of cancer, of asthma. There are more and more health 
>problems with young children. We are ruining it for them."
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>Much of the growing interest in the Catholic eco-spirituality movement has 
>come from religious women's communities, rather than from the men's, 
>Taylor noted. One of the key reasons may be that women in the Catholic 
>religious tradition are technically considered lay people, not clergy, and 
>that gives them more room for experimentation.
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>"Since men are part of the church hierarchy, they are less willing to 
>challenge the power and the hierarchy, because they are part of it. The 
>women have less to lose," Taylor said.
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>Ironically, it was the writings of a man -- the Passionist Catholic priest 
>and so called "geologian of the cosmos" Thomas Berry -- who inspired many 
>of the women in Sisters of Earth. He is the author of "The Whole Earth 
>Papers" and "The Dream of the Earth," in which he outlines what some 
>Christians call the "new cosmology" -- a new and Earth-focused way of 
>looking at the Judeo-Christian story of creation and the origin of human kind.
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>"The future of the Catholic Church in America, in my view, will depend 
>above all on its capacity to assume a religious responsibility for the 
>fate of the Earth," Berry wrote in a 1982 essay. "My question is this: 
>After we burn our lifeboat, how will we stay afloat? What will then be the 
>need of religion, Christianity or the church? Only by assuming its 
>religious responsibilities for the fate of the Earth can the church regain 
>any effective status either in the human community or in the Earth process."
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>Berry's teachings resonated with another local nun who devoted herself to 
>the cause. St. Joseph's Sister Toni Nash, La Casa de Maria's program 
>coordinator, helps spread the word about the environmental crisis by 
>teaching others about the new cosmology.
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>She explains: "Cosmology is a group's creation story, and it lays the 
>foundation for how people view themselves on Earth, where they came from, 
>and what their purpose is.
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>"Our cosmology has been that God came, created us and the world, and then 
>left," she said. "It's that view that allows us to treat the Earth as a 
>thing to be explored and exploited. We do not see it as a sacred entity."
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>Under the new cosmology, the creation and the Earth and all its creatures 
>are considered part of an unfolding, sacred process in which human beings 
>have only recently begun to play a part, considering that the Earth is 
>approximately 4 billion years old.
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>"We are reclaiming evolution and understanding its sacred dimensions -- it 
>is a world still in evolution, being created as we speak. God's active 
>creation is ongoing," Nash said. "We need to understand that when we 
>interfere with this process, when we damage our Earth and pollute our 
>water, we are doing something significant."
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>Human beings must change their behavior if the Earth is to be saved, she said.
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>"We are destroying the Earth at a rapid pace, and we don't have a lot of 
>time," she said, noting that water pollution in some streams has caused 
>new generations of fish to be born without reproductive organs.
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>"The water that we drink is the water that surrounds our babies in the 
>womb," she said. "We need to stop the destruction, and put alternatives 
>into place to repair what's been broken."
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